Jerry Carmichael

The year 2007 should be remembered as a very important year in the history of church planting. The Grant County church of Christ was established by the Lehman Avenue church of Christ. This was the result of years of financial preparation, one year of feasibility studies and many trips to Dry Ridge Kentucky.

A building was purchased with the help of Lehman Avenue and many other supporting churches. The brethren from the Summit church of Christ in Cold Spring, KY remodeled the building. The result is a beautiful facility that so far has met our needs completely.

We began meeting on April 1 of this year. Our first day was great. We had 211 present and a contribution of over $2,000.00!

In June brethren from the church in Mount Juliet, TN came and helped us conduct a door-knocking campaign. In conjunction with the campaign brother David Shannon held an excellent Gospel Meeting. The results of the campaign are still being felt. 9 were baptized and 5 restored the week of the campaign. However, since that time we have had 5 more baptisms and several restorations. 4 of these were people we met during the campaign!

In July the youth groups came from Mayfield and Henderson, KY. They brought several young folks with them and conducted our very first VBS. It was a great week with an average of about 35 present each night. VBS ended on Wednesday evening with a pizza party. All the pizzas were donated by brother John Glass from the Point Pleasant church in Hebron, KY!

We have mailed House to House magazine to over 2,000 houses in the area twice this year. As a result we are currently engaged in 2 home bible studies and 6 active correspondence courses. We have been busy the rest of the year, following up on contacts made from the campaign and VBS.

The numbers for the year are looking great. We have averaged about 35 in attendance and about $350.00 per week in contributions. There have been several Sundays with 40 0r more in attendance. We are becoming closer as Gods family here every day.

We currently have 4 young families with a total of 11 children ranging in age from 1 to 16 years.

We also have 4 men who can lead singing and 3 who will teach classes. We have 3 women teachers for the children. We have 8 men who will lead in public prayer and serve the Lords supper etc. We actually have as much useful talent as many much older congregations!

The church at Calvert City, KY has donated tables for the classrooms, engraved pew Bibles and a 2001 Chevy van! We thank them for their generosity. We are currently picking up between 9 and 11 people for every service! Many other congregations and individuals have given so many needed items that it would be impossible to name them all, but we thank you all.

We want to especially thank the Lehman Avenue elders and members for the huge leap of faith that you took in establishing this work. God has blessed us with success from the very beginning of this project.

When we started this project we had 9 adjoining counties without scriptural churches in them. With the establishment of the Grant County church by Lehman Avenue and the ground-work for the Harrison County church already completed by the North Lexington church, we only have 7 counties left. Our prayer is that other churches will adopt 1 or more of the other counties and establish good sound congregations there. The remaining counties without churches are Timble, Henry, Owen, Pendleton, Bracken, Robertson and Fleming.

We also are very thankful to all of our members for a great year in Grant County. We look forward to an even greater 2008! But most importantly, we thank our God in whom we "live and breath and have our very being." Please keep us in your prayers in the future.